


Report: Business and personal papers of the Hyrnek printing house and Hyrnek family, pending purchase

by Megkips



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Epistolary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 10:38:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12703269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megkips/pseuds/Megkips
Summary: An insight into the life of Kitty Jones after all is said and done





	Report: Business and personal papers of the Hyrnek printing house and Hyrnek family, pending purchase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freudiancascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudiancascade/gifts).



Report: Business and personal papers of the Hyrnek printing house and Hyrnek family, pending purchase  
Manuscripts and Archives  
British Library  
Euston Road  
London, NW1

For a great number of years, Hyrnek’s Printers has remained one of the major printing houses of London. The family themselves hail from the areas around Prague, and printing has been the family tradition for centuries. To say that they hold a place of importance for the Empire would be an understatement: they have printed material for London’s magicians for as long as they have been on the shores of England. Presently these papers are being offered up due to storage and preservation concerns - the current storage locations are bursting.

Due to their origins, the Hyrneks also suffered a great amount of discrimination from the government and from the very clients to whom they produced remarkable works for. Numerous examples of their exquisite bindings are present in the British Library, and were given their own exhibition not five years ago. The recognition of the Czech-English printers has been a long time coming, and was one of the reasons the Manuscripts and Archives department was interested when it was announced that the family was seeking a repository for their history. Presently, the Hyrnek family has permitted a small portion of the material to be examined by the British Library as well as others who are considering this acquisition. This has been done at the printing house’s headquarters. As a note, the Hyrneks remain uneasy about a government institution taking charge of their personal and business related material. The primary competition facing the British Library is that of University of Edinburgh, which is seeking to diversify its holdings. Scotland has always been a better environment for those whose families once belonged to enemies of the Empire, and so it is likely that the Hyrneks have already made their decision.

This collection is mostly made of business records, and chart the sale of materials to some of the most prominent magicians in London. All prime ministers are accounted for, some using aliases or agents. Most government officials are also present. The family papers make up a smaller portion, but they are not insignificant. They speak to the family’s treatment at the hands of the government, and the discrimination faced until very recently.

Also present is a chunk of correspondence (about three manuscript boxes’ worth) between Jakob Hyrnek and Kitty Jones, the latter of whom is associated with resolving the Makepeace Incident fifty years ago along with the late John Mandrake. Jones remains a reclusive figure, having long since settled in the American West and declining to speak of the events of the Makepeace Incident. This makes the correspondence of particular interest. It spans the bulk of Jakob Hyrnek’s life from the time he departed to Bruges until his recent death.

Two letters are worth reproducing in their entirety. One contains some new information on both the Incident and Aftermath. The other speaks to the friendship between the two and their emotional intimacy. Jones never put dates on her letters, but Hyrnek seems to have kept them in chronological order. Envelopes are rare in the collection, and none are associated with these two letters.

Letter 1, some ten years after the Incident:

Jakob,

I will try and visit you sometime in the next several months. My travel plans have been bumped around a few times, in no small part due to Egypt trying to make sure that it isn’t swallowed up by any of the other surrounding territories who are trying to use more magic than they should to gain advantage over their rivals. That has meant closed borders, and I am not in the right position to try and make illegal crossings.

It also means that I have spent more time in Alexandria than I intended to. I think I’ve mentioned to you before that the spirit I’ve known was heavily based out of the city for a portion of his life, and it definitely feels as if, beneath the very thick layers of magic applied to this place time and again over the centuries, there is a very thin piece of a familiar presence. The goal wasn’t to walk in anyone’s footsteps, I promise. It just ended up happening that way, and the feeling of it is still very weird.

As far as going to America is concerned, I am going to do it at some point. With the withdrawal of troops being something so debated back when everything was being sorted, I think it’s worth going to see what’s sprung up without the Empire there to try and regulate any of it. It was stupid, how much time was wasted debating that. It still is, as I’ve heard rumblings about wanting to go back in, or to buy some of the areas Spain or France still own in order to spite the Americans. I don’t know why, or what else is in the country besides the coasts. Maybe that and that alone is worth trying to find out.

I know that the people there still summon spirits. Not the people from Europe, but the people who’ve been there far longer than anyone else. I wonder if there are actually any differences between their magicians and ours. 

I’ll find out eventually. In the meantime, I’ll write you when I’m out of Egypt. Let me know if you’d like any kind of faux-pottery or artefacts that every seller claims holds a spirit, but really the spirit’s just gin.

-Kitty

Letter 2, maybe twenty years after the last letter:

J,

Letters here are infrequent because the interior of America does not have the same kinds of roads that the coast has. The sense of solitude is something else altogether, especially when you’re so used to cities and their lights. You’d find it strange. I don’t blame you. I’m not used to it.

I’m not going to recount all the traveling and whatnot either. Going from Charleston out here to the mountains is pretty much what you’d expect: there’s a big sprawling city, and then there’s a few scattered towns, and then there’s absolutely nothing at all aside from the caravan you’re part of, the people who have farms out on the edge of all things, and the people who’ve called this place home for even longer. There’s no sense of hierarchy in the group I’m with either. 

One of them is a magician that might as well be a younger version of Mr. Button, homegrown in America and aware that I don’t like that he has to summon spirits in order to scout ahead or protect us from wildlife. He’s a skinny thing, and our primary guide laughingly called him the Muscle on day one and the name has stuck ever since. Our guide herself is an older woman, maybe in her 40s, who has done cursory explorations of the mountains and speaks all of the local languages. The third person of importance is our cook, who claims she used to be a London magician back when London didn’t regulate them and their summons so heavily, but has also learned that spirits (she keeps calling them demons) can’t cook as well as she can, so she leaves all magic to the Muscle. Then there’s a few folks like myself who are either here just for the sake of it, looking for new homesteads, or trying to better map the area as a part of the American government’s attempt to get a complete overview of what they’ve just acquired from France. They claim they’re doing it without any influence of magic, but for some of the areas up north, everyone knows they’re using spirits. Denying it is just normal practice.

The inn I’m writing this from sits right at the edge of the mountain we’re off to explore in the next few days. There’s about six rooms, and our group’s occupied all of them. Since it’s October, the leaves are a riot of colors, and moving silently through the forest is impossible. Everything swishes, crunches, and crackles when you move. Good for scaring away animals, but bad if you’re trying not to tell everyone your location. I’ve drawn a sketch of the place on the back of this letter - there aren’t any postcards in a place like this.

Please use this inn as my address for the time being. I’ll be sure to check it twice a month. Don’t hesitate to send more mail than I will either - the postcards are, at this point, not just for me but for everyone in the group.

-Kitty 

 

It is my recommendation that, based on the correspondence series alone, the Manuscripts and Archives of the British Library acquire these papers, and fast track their organization so that they may be available to the public as quickly as possible. It is impossible to understate how important the Jones letters are to our understanding of the Makepeace Incident and the effects it has had on the Empire ever since, as well as understanding her own character.

Respectfully submitted,  
Sasha Harrington  
Acquisitions Librarian  
Manuscripts and Archives


End file.
